6  A friend of a young Marine wife whose body was found in Southwest Riverside County last year testified Monday that she reported the woman missing after receiving a series of text messages that caused her concern.

Channy Tal said she had been with her friend, 22-year-old Brittany Killgore, throughout much of the day on April 13, helping her pack her belongings at a Fallbrook apartment. Later that day, Killgore left to go on a dinner cruise with a man she knew as “Ivan.”

Not long after her friend left the apartment that evening, Tal received a text message from Killgore’s phone that read: “Help.”

Tal testified that she was inside Killgore’s apartment when “Ivan” — whom she later learned was Perez — came to the door. She said Killgore was hesitant to go on the cruise and called Perez’s pregnant girlfriend to ask for her permission.

The girlfriend, Maraglino, said it was OK.

Tal, who lived in the same apartment complex as Killgore, said she loaned her friend two dresses to choose from to wear on her night out. One was a glittery purple floral dress that still had sales tags on it.

After she received the first message, Tal said she repeatedly tried to contact Killgore by text, asking her if she was OK. She received a response that read: “Yes. I love this party.”

The message made Tal uneasy because it did not sound like it came from her friend.

The witness said she sent several texts asking her friend to call, and the responses she received did little to reassure her. They read: “In a few. Hot guys;” and “It’s OK. Music is too loud.”

“I was insistent that she call me so I could hear her voice,” Tal said. “I wanted to make sure that she was OK.”

Eventually she spoke to Perez on the phone, who told her he had driven with Killgore to downtown San Diego and dropped her off in front of a nightclub while he looked for parking, according to the testimony. Perez said he saw Killgore with two guys. He then parked and went inside the club but was not able to find her.

He told Tal that his SUV was running low on gas, but that he would look for Killgore again before he left for home.

Tal said she spoke to other friends that evening, and showed them the messages, asking what she should do. Tal testified that she had also received a couple of phone calls that night, during which she could only hear loud music playing.

She never spoke to Killgore.

The next morning, Tal and Killgore’s best friend, Elizabeth Hernandez, used a spare key to enter the young woman’s apartment. The items Tal had loaned her friend — one of the two dresses, a curling iron and a straightening iron — were still there. The tags that had been on the floral dress were on the bed, but Killgore was nowhere to be found.

Tal and Hernandez contacted the Sheriff’s Department.

Killgore’s body was found a few days later in a roadside ditch near Lake Skinner, east of Murrieta. According to court documents, it appeared that she had been strangled with a ligature.

Hernandez testified that she befriended Maraglino after buying an item from her that had been posted online. Hernandez said she learned that Maraglino, Lopez and Perez engaged in an alternative lifestyle that included master/slave relationships.

She said Killgore often accompanied her to Maraglino’s Fallbrook house to hang out, but they never participated in any sexual or sadomasochistic activities.